South Pacific Survey, 13 June 1951

Another nice sunny day and Pawpaw for breakfast together with the atrocious coffee. Once again out to Satapuala through the delightful groves of coconut palms and villages. Many people on the road and the driver sounds the horn continuously though if he were not going so fast he would not need to. Hens are cheap to run over, but a pig is a different matter, and he may go as high as 50 pounds if he is a good one. Had the boys shinny up the coconut tree and much mopping up of the clear cool liquid.

Laid the remaining buoys and got ready for sweeping operations to commence on the morrow.

After lunch, the poles to sweep were considered to be not long enough and I suggested they be lengthened by 4 ft. This entailed work by the PWD so we boarded the Apia pilot boat and went coastwise to look at an alternative area, unfortunately they had no map, so the trip was more or less a dead loss, except to see some really vicious coral, and the delightful way the Fijian skipper quietly manouevered his boat out of trouble. Had a swim, went home and after a yarn to the NAC crew just in, went to bed sunburned and weary.